Merry Xmas!

Just to spread some cheer thanks to Weird Al!

No Atheists Allowed

So I have been thinking about going into politics rather than just sitting back and lettig things happen. Sadly after reviewing local laws I found out that I can't serve in the county with job protection. The county charter Article VI, Section 6.09 covers "race, creed, color, sex, national origin, or political opinions or affiliations." This quite obviously does not cover religion under descrimination that is not allowed. This jibes with the state that has only 3 articles in its constitution about descrimination and Article IX, Sec. 2, of the Tennessee constitution ("No Atheist shall hold a civil office") states: "No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments shall hold any office in the civil department of this state." So my political career was cut so short it didn't exist. The only place I can serve is the city of Memphis which I might still do, but I'd set my goals a little higher towards the state level. I have contacted the Tn state chapter of the ACLU, but since I am not currently running for an office I don't know what will happen with it. Either way it's descrimination. Even if the people in the state don't want atheists to run, they can just not vote for them, but a person cannot say, "I don't like what you believe so I say that you can't work to better the state." Oh, well. I will see what comes of it.

Joe the Ploy that's getting old

So with the Joe the Plumber thing going absolutely crazy, along with almost 90% of the electorate, I thought I would add my opinion on the whole thing. I was fairly surprised that it lasted so long after they found out that he lied about his income, intention to buy, company profits, and job. He was worried about taxes which he doesn’t pay and was already a right-wing radio star and poster boy. Since the cost of Sara the Candidate’s-Number-Two’s maintenance came out and was reveled to be $27,000 more expensive than Joe’s house, I figured John the Candidate would drop the subject. But alas he is on a Joe the Plumber tour and driving me up the wall.

I don’t understand why Joe the lying-not-really-a-plumber is such a big deal. He is taken as an example of very American by the McPain-in-the-neck campaign. I don’t think most American’s would make a spectacle of themselves by lying to a national candidate and then not listening to his response to the lie, because, well, it was a lie. A white man in the middle class who does a job is not the quintessential voter anymore. This has long sense passed and doesn’t make McLame seem more in touch at all. In fact, it makes it look like he is even more sheltered than anyone would have thought.

This morning on NPR they were discussing race and who Joe-Sixpack was. Those who support McSame all said he was a regular guy like them, but that is not how I see it. Joe-Sixpack is a worthless, gutless wife-beater who can’t hold a job and lays about the house threatening to beat his children while chugging cheap domestic brews that taste, quite frankly, of piss. Where the idea that he is what every American is is ridiculous and it sticks to the white-man is everyone idea of the electorate. Others who talked on the idea said redneck and hillbilly and country music fan. that is more what I see and I have found that, at least among my friends (college-age, black and white, bipartisan students) this is what they got too.

The idea that in this vast society the entirety or even the majority of the electorate can be summed up in one person is ridiculous. Even a single family can have people of all creeds, races, socioeconomic levels, and ideas. Picking a single person as a representative, especially when he (it is always a he even though there are more female voters) is made up. Barak the Front-Runner has not chosen a person to be a representative because he understands the vast multicultural society that makes up the country he wants to lead. The point is that John the Coot needs to straighten up and stop playing this crazy idea of all people being Joe. I am not a Joe and never want to be.

FYI- Women’s “health” *smug smirk* is an issue and making fun f it is really not a good idea.

The Move to Primates

Primates (this includes Apes which includes Humans, Homo Sapian Sapian)- This is a gill-less, organic, RNA, DNA, protein based metabolic, metazoic, nucleic, diploid, bilaterally symmetrical, endothermic, digestive, tripoblastic piscatant, duderostone, collimate with a spinal cord and 12 cranial nerves connecting to a limbic system with a large cerebral cortex with a reduced olfactory region inside of a jawed skull with specialized teeth including canines and premolars, forward oriented, fully enclosed optical orbits in a single temporal fenestrate attached to a vertebrate, hind-leg dominant, tetrapodal skeleton with a sacral pelvis, clavicle, and wrist and ankle bones and having lungs, tear ducts, body-wide hair follicles, lacteal mammories, opposable thumbs, and keratinized dermas and kitinous nails on all five nails on all four extremities in addition to an embryonic development in amniotic fluid leading to a placental birth and a highly social lifestyle. -AronRa

Just a point for those who don't understand evolution. Each of these steps had its own inividual step in the evolutionary process.

McCain-Palin

Oh boy. I am not sure whether I am offended, apathetic, angry, or all of the above. Alright, I can see the political motivations for this: fighting his anti-women votes, countering Obama's historic aspect, supporting the current political problems in Alaska, and getting those stray Hillary voters. Some new developments about her interferance in police jobs and getting a person fired as well as all of the pork she brought to places in Alaska show that she goes against McCain's maverick show. She falls on the strict conservative party line and is very, very socially conservative. Some people have said that it is bad that she isn't home with her 5 kids (and she does have a 17 year old pregnant daughter, which they use as evidence that she should stay home). It makes me kinda mad that McCain would pick her (an unknown and not all that helpful Governor who has not worked outside of the state) instead of many other women who are in or were in the House or Senate with more Washington experiance. It makes me madder that he then dares to claim that Obama has less experience than Palin! He record goes against just about everything I take a side on and she seems like a political puppet who will be put behind a desk or in front of cameras and really do nothing so McCain can say he is a maverick and follow the blazed trail. That's all I can think of now. It really bugs me. (By the way, what is with McCain and beauty queens with big eyes who are blonde and kinda scary?)

The Internet and Obama is a Muslim

I can’t believe how much dumber the internet has made people. I guess not dumber, maybe it just plays to people’s gullibility. I have seen usually smart people claim absolutely backwards things because they did “research” on the internet. When I ask for the “research,” all I get are websites that are... of... dubious origin. It’s never the Harvard Research Department or the national archives. Saying that you found it on fox.com does not make it true. The latest, and most annoying, argument that I had was about whether or not Obama is a Muslim. They had research they did on-line, but they didn’t site archives or registration or show me anything at all. It was just a yes-no argument.

I don’t even see why it matters if he is a Muslim or not or was a Muslim even matters. The problem with something like this is that people could be raised one way or be something at one time and change in the meantime. People jump to say that Bush is a Christian, but he is a “Born-again” Christian. This means at one point he wasn’t or was not a good one. The fear of Muslims is ridiculous when there are so many different types of Muslims on the planet and each local has different beliefs and traditions, the same is true of all different religions including Christians. I was raised, at least in the later part of my childhood Christian, but am an agnostic secularist now. It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. So Obama was/is a Muslim, John McCain doesn’t believe in women’s rights or Separation of Powers, or the Geneva Convention! Wake-up!

I think the problem with the internet is the age difference in users. When I was in school they were teaching us about what kinds of cites we can believe and how to properly research on the internet. Fact checking on-line is very different from in a book. The people I was arguing with are in their late forties and not trained in computers, much less internet fact finding. I could go right now and set up a website claiming that John McCain fathered babies in Vietnam and his Vietnamese grandchildren are trying to gain citizenship. When people start listing it on other websites, anyone could then pick it up as fact. I just don’t like my research to be discounted when I go to legitimate sites and review years of articles and speeches and votes and don’t rely on the Google top ten list for my information. The thing I guess that really bugged me about the encounter is that I was not to be believed and the research I did was to be discounted because I am young, naive, and brainwashed by Obama’s superstar power. The fact, that computers were widely used outside of scientific and government institutes before I got out of elementary school, should count for something when it comes to internet use and research.

Rant Complete.

The Race Has Begun!

Well, the election season has officially started. Both campaigns have officially started their attacks on each other. The McCain campaign had negative supporters from the start, but the campaign went dirty very quickly. The Obama ad “attacking” McCain was, I have to say, very bland. I wouldn’t even call it an attack ad, but it has been dubbed so by the talking heads on both sides. I hope they start debating soon and all of the campaign ad coverage stops. I am getting sick of watching news shows about an ad that runs during the commercial. It is even more stomach churning listening to some of the McCain apologists trying to say that McCain doesn’t speak for the McCain campaign when he makes a gaff or flip-flops. The term flip-flopping needs to be officially removed from the political vocabulary of America before people are afraid to give any opinion for fear of changing their minds eight or more years later. That’s one of the things I have noticed some McCain supporters are annoyed by with Obama. He is very good at not giving an opinion or straddling the fence but making it seem like he’s being specific and answering whatever he is charged with or asked. This annoys me too, but it is a brilliant campaign move when the flip-flops are flying (alliteration rocks).

I was not surprised that McCain claimed Obama was playing the race card. I don’t think it applied in the way he was using it and that the term race card should go the way of the flip-flop. Obama was not using his or his opponent’s race as an issue or a way of getting votes. He was pointing out, at least in the clips I have seen, that this is an expected attack from the McCain campaign. This makes it even more ironic that he used it for this statement, especially after the third time he said the same thing. I don’t know if the race argument is going to work for or against either candidate in a significant way.

I might just be immune to it living in Memphis where there is a huge move to change our local Representative because he is white and the area he represents is mostly black. The campaign against him is trying to find everything they can to say that he is racist, even thought he has the support of many black politicians from around here and has done an excellent job, especially on the Judiciary Committee. He has the voting record of a black woman and has served Memphis well. He put forth the bill where Congress denounced the slave trade and officially apologized. I was really mad when NPR interviewed a black journalist from Chicago who made fun of him. It makes a difference here in Memphis and in the south and does not need ridicule from others. The school board hasn’t funded our schools when the teachers have already headed back and there was a serious debate about the city removing all funding from its schools. It is not needed when the last mayoral election was divided around race and economic lines and the man who won held his office hostage unless they made him superintendant of the school board. We don’t need other people ragging on one of the few very good politicians we have as more of those who abused their power are brought to justice.

That side-rant aside (tee-hee), the campaigns are heating up faster than the inside of my car in the parking lot at the airport. Through the blather, it is nearly possible to piece-meal the candidates’ platforms together. I think I support Obama. (I loath to say that because I hate being lumped into a group and people misinterpreting my motives and intentions.) I will be surer of that once they have a debate or two and have better laid out their positions. I am never going to vote for McCain. At first I took it easy on him, but he has made way too many mistakes and has terrible positions when it comes to women’s rights and constitutional matters. It irks me that this election cycle has gone so Christian, but I understand it since Obama is being called a Muslim, which I don’t see as being particularly evil, and McCain needs to win the religious right to help rally the base of his party. If Obama goes through with his “Faith Based Initiative” plan, I will probably work against him in the next election if he is anything other than an excellent president. So I guess I am an Obama supporter, but just as an anti-McCain voter.

McCain and Women

Alright. I have found that I am not alone in wondering about McCain's almost indifference towards women. His voting record is terrible. He hasn't voted for a single women's issue since he has been in senate including the Equal Work, Equal Pay bill or the bill to force those who cover Viagra to cover contraceptives too. Now they found that terrible joke about a woman enjoying being beaten, raped repeatedly, and left to die by a gorilla. It makes no sense that no one is out screaming in the streets over this. I hate to bring this up again when talking about something McCain said, but if Obama had said this, he would be in more trouble than can be imagined.

His handlers just shrugged it off. I guess this is what really makes me mad. They just said that this shows McCain being McCain. Yeah. That is what I want for president. What is he going to do next? His sad attempts at rumor never seem to get more than half-hearted chuckles from those around him. When he said that the cigarettes we export to Iran might be to kill people, that was bad enough. I could already guess from things he has said that he would be tasteless when it came to his xenophobia, but now he is turning more and more chauvinistic and increasingly xenophobic. I am just waiting for him to call Obama "Boy" next so we can all add bigoted to the list of his characteristics which are pure McCain and reasons for us to make him president. Oh yeah, and he's OLD!!

Freedom of Speech vs Scientific Inquiry

As part of the Bill of Rights, we, as citizens of America are given a right to freedom of speech in circumstances where it doesn't infringe on the rights, or safety, of others. The problem we have now is that people are trying to make scientific debates democratic and free-for-all. This is most obvious in contraceptives, evolution, and stem cell research.

The framing of no argument and insertion of no facts after very loudly and forcefully complaining that something is "unproven," a "theory," or just claiming that it is "ridiculous" has somehow given credence to people whose ideas are based on a personal belief supported by a "strict interpretation" of a controversial document with questionable origins and history. This acceptance of these arguments completely baffles me. After studying the arguments I have found that I can almost cut and paste words into their arguments and disprove anything, even their arguments. The problem we have now is that they are claiming to be unheard and ignored when trying to talk to scientists, because they are not worth engaging. If a scientist does confront someone, they are given the win not matter what they do in the argument. I think some of the debates come down to a scientist and someone just standing there saying "God" and "Jesus" and "Bible" over and over.

Scientific Inquiry works off of the presentation of facts and studies and a review of the material presented. The biggest problems with most of these controversies is that when they are criticised, even in a professional manner, the response to the criticism is either to ignore it, insult the person giving it, or the argumentative equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and going, "La, la,la,la,la. La, la, la, la, la." This would not be an issue if they didn't then go crying to people that they are being suppressed by the evil scientists. It is ludicrous.

I just wanted to point this out right now as it has been driving me up the wall for a few days.

The Faith in America

America truly is a nation of faith. I am not talking about any religious faith, though there are many. People in America have faith in more than they think. The monetary system is based on faith. It was taken off the gold standard in 1971 by president Nixon. There is no basis for our currency and with the new computer abilities. We must have faith that the money in our account and that which is direct deposited into our account is really there and really exists. Money trading on the stock market in futures is based on the faith that there will be product in the future. Terry Pratchett has this most graphically shown when he introduces the "pork futures warehouse" where pork-to-be goes backwards in time to the present when it is removed from the warehouse. Often the trading in futures actually shapes the future.

We hold faith that our electoral process works. Even though it is rife with mistakes and fraud, vote caging, and some voter discrimination. We are encouraged to believe that our individual votes count. We are told that it doesn't matter how much money a person has, he or she can become president (supposing they qualify per the constitution). All of this is true for a given value of true. Yes it is possible that each person's vote counts the same or that each of us could become president, but it is fairly unsound. If we were in a political vacuum where ideas were weighed against the constitution and there were no lobbyists then perhaps this would be true, but it really seems to be fluff to keep people content. The greatest example of all of this is the 2000 election where there is evidence that former vice-president Al Gore actually won the election.

The faith in law is a really important one. For the laws to actually regulate anyone and the police to be effective, people have to have a mental check in place to stop them from stepping over the line and breaking the law. This is one place where religion is useful as it has people pre-programmed for this type of thinking with the commands and punishments they teach. I am in no way saying that without religion people would break the law or not follow it. I am simply agreeing, I think it is with Marx, that religion is a way of keeping people docile and happy where they are ("the meek shall inherit the earth" IE keep your head down and don't make trouble). My point is that without mentally accepting the laws, people have no reason to follow them. The number of policemen in areas where people don't hold the laws as a barrier has to be greater than the overall average of policemen in the country. This is why there are problems with some laws and controversy surrounding them. If a law is considered unjust and doesn't fit into peoples mental image of where the boundaries are between law and preference, then we get riots and revolution (tea, anyone?). The faith in the laws and justice system in the country is tantamount to its survival. If people really started questioning the laws and fighting the police, there is no way the police would win, especially when they are outnumbered by their family and friends as well as the country.

In short America is a country of faith.

Beware the Tectonites!!!

It is my solumn duty to warn everyone whose belief systems are challenged by plate tectonics. Hitler believed in plate tectonic!!! He was a Newtonian as well. Stop the theories!!



A thank you to DonExodus2... is vids rock.

http://www.youtube.com/user/DonExodus2

Indiana Jones- The World's Greatest Criminal

Those who i talk to a lot knew that this was coming and I'm sorry it took so long. I have decided that, as the title says, Indiana Jones is the world's greatest criminal. He commits international crimes and is actually a hired mercinary for the US governement who goes into foreign lands and steals artifacts, killes people, and damages property. In spite of all of this he still has us cheering for him and hoping he gets away with it. It must be because he is racing against bigger enemies than he is. He also has a remarkable chain of luck that keeps him, when out numbered twenty to one, from getting killed or stepping on a snake, or meeting the one bad guy who would kill you instead of tying you up. Even people in the countries he is stealing from like him. They actually help him steal national treasures and take them to the United States. Therefore, the hero of ages is a criminal that people can't help but love.

Creationist sites Richard Dawkins

The Creationist in this debate uses a quote from Richard Dawkins to support his case. It is in his response on the first question when he is talking about all the great contributions creation scientists make. And yes, they made contributions but not to the fields that would be truely effected by evolution vs creation. Though with the quotation of Richard Dawkins as support, I don't know if he can be trusted.

Obama the Democratic Choice

Barak Obama is the official nominee for the Democratic party in the 2008 presidential election. After discussing this with friends and pondering it since Tuesday, I have decided that I don’t like this much. Until he makes a decision on who to have as a running mate I, and several of my other democratic friends, are not planning on voting for him.

For my friends, they don’t trust him. They see him as “a republican in disguise.” I couldn’t get any elaboration on this, but one went on to say that he is not true in his speeches and he isn’t for black people (both of the friends who said this are black). One said that he will never understand what it is to be a black person in the South and, no matter where he came from is a “Starbucks.” This enmity about Obama on the part of some black people is something I have heard a great deal. At my school, while the race was still going on, we did a random, brief poll in the dorm and only one of the people I talked to (out of 15) was definitely pro-Obama. He was very... loyal. I previously wrote a blog on debate and could use him in that segment just as easily. He didn’t seem to know a great deal about Obama’s early career and attacked Clinton for associations on her husband’s part, but never Obama’s associates. He said that Rev. Wright didn’t represent Obama and it was wrong for anyone to think so, but was very cocky when the photo of President Clinton with Rev. Wright came out and used it to link Clinton to the pastor and attack her choices of friends. Eight of the rest were Republicans and held varying views of McCain, most were very pro-Huckaby.

As for the other 6, they were all female in the field of engineering, science, or mathematics and none of them could decide. I got the impression that they felt, as I did, that if they supported Clinton, they would be labeled feminists and dismissed in any argument as loons. None of them felt comfortable supporting Obama. Most, if not everything they saw, was him giving speeches in front of a cheering crowd, but nothing he said really came as genuine. This is definitely how I felt. Now I agree that his is a brilliant speaker with a great deal of political savvy, even if his supporters want to call it him being genuine. He is a politician, just like Clinton and McCain. The problem I have is that he has no credentials to present that would, in my mind, make him a great president. He strikes me as business as usual, maybe they painted and got new carpet, but nothing has truly changed.

One of the scariest things I hear from all of my black friends and acquaintances is that they are going to be voting for whoever his vice-presidential candidate is. They say that if he picks someone they think has the ability and integrity to be president, they will vote for him, but if he doesn’t, then they will stay home. One or two said they would vote for McCain, but when others said that they were going to stay home they changed their minds. I agreed that who he chooses for his VP will dictate how I vote, but they took it further. They said that there was no way he would get through his presidency without being forced out of office or, shockingly, assassinated. I couldn’t go that far. When I asked if that was what they wanted, they said that what they wanted was for him to be a vice-president or Secretary of State and then run for president. The distrust they had for Obama and the Democratic party was very suprising, but I agree that I don’t really support this candidate and the way the party has run from Clinton because of her husband. I will have to watch his VP choice closely and then make my decision, but I really want someone to defeat McCain. I hope he chooses wisely.

Dateline UFO Report

This is the entire episode form Dateline on Sunday. They decided to examine UFOs and here are the clips.

'The Pheonix Lights'


'The New Zealand Orbs'


'The Stephenville Sighting'


'Tinley Park Triangle'


'Air Force Encounter'


'The Hudson Boomerang'


'The Belgium Triangle'


'The Florida Mystery'


'The Galactic Encounter'


'The McMinnville Sightings'


'The Cartet Sightings'


'Minnesota Sightings a UFO Case?'


'What was behind the Soviet Obsession with UFOs?'


I think these are in the right order. They are presented on a case by case basis. I provided the labels for them that are on the msnbc website. Here's a step by step breakdown of this disgraceful show.

'The Pheonix Lights'
Announcer starts the talk of UFOs. A witness starts the actual clip. She describes an intelligence looking at her... ohhh shes a doctor. James Fox is somehow able to be a specialist for this. He interviewed a great deal of witnesses who could judge distance in the sky. The skeptic talks about the difference between witnesses testimonies. And seems to attack the witnesses. The Governor had it investigated and pulled a joke from that with an aid dressed as an alien. The military finally admitted to a training mission with dropped flares. Again the eye witnesses don't believe it. "I'm not saying it is a UFO, but it isn't military flare." Then the governor becomes a witness suddenly. A skeptic talks about the governor as a witness. Back to the witnesses.

'The New Zealand Orbs'
A news reporter starts out with his description along with a second hand story from pilots. The announcer is not funny. He said the camera man was having troubles getting footage and the sound reporter wouldn't try and go a second time. It is suddenly an alien sighting. Some people say it was a squid boat fishing and a skeptic gets his chance. Of course the 'investigator' doesn't believe it and points out some of the then debunked "problems." Die, announcer, die!!!!

'The Stephenville Sighting'
The center of Texas and people are the "back bone of Aerica" and "not prone to fancy." Nice set up. It starts with a police officer/ witness describing what he sees. Ken Cheery from MUFON is the 'specialist.' He talks about 1 person out of the hundreds who saw it said it was bigger than a super Wal-Mart. Because you can tell when it's in the sky. The government said they were flying jets. But the specialist believes the credibility of the witnesses not the specialists.

'Tinley Park Triangle'
More witness testimony starts off. 'Specialist' uses big words like 'isocolese' and 'illuminations' so he must be legit. The witness contacted a UFO invesigator. Great... The specialist talks about all the different witnesses. Somehow the jet is at the exact same height as a jet. Michal Shermer is labeled a skeptic and shows patterns and connecting dots, flares and balloons. The 'specialist' says he doesn't have to say where it came from and leans more towards extraterrestrial. The witness says it's not man-made. He must be right.

'Air Force Encounter'
The title of this one worried me because pilots cannot be wrong and neither can military people. This one is presented just as terribly as the rest. I wish the female announcer would stay out of it. They couldn't locate the radar blip and heat at the same place. The announcer chimes in, I hate her. Robert Schafer talks about oil flares. Their "specialist" talks about an unexplained radar target in spit of other stuff. The skeptic still doesn't get a good say.

'The Hudson Boomerang'
This is from 1983 to 1989 in the East Coast. There's another specialist who talks about how great the witnesses were. He talks about their jobs and how he witnessed it too. The skeptics are presented as saying it was hoaxers flying private aircrafts "lights on, lights off." The "investigator says there is no way it could have been planes and that skeptics wouldn't be skeptics if they had seen something.


'The Belgium Triangle'
A huge object appeared and some guyswho havetudied UFOs and so is therefore a specialist. They describe information collected from Belgium and envoke Star Trek. "All this" can't sway the skeptics. They are depicted as the outsiders and don't give any other evidence and seem to be attacking. Phil Embrogno, one of the UFO 'specialists' he sounds very knowledgable. D*mn.

'The Florida Mystery'
I was interested to see how they presented this one since I had previously read about it in depth. They opening description is really discouraging. They got the guy taking the pics wrong. He said it was someone else giving it to him. Other people came over and said they saw it too. This is all stuff that had been hashed and rehashed. They talk to a witness. They bring out the skeptics and their ideas that its a prank. They discuss the finding of the model in Ed Walters attic. End with the "there are still those who believe..."

'The Galactic Encounter'
This is from the fall of '66. The astronauts saw a flashing light outside one of the portholes. One took pictures of the blobby spots. NASA "couldn't explain" so NORAD said it could be a booster from a Soviet rocket. They then debunk it for the UFOlogists, but come back to a skeptic who says that it may have been something jettisenned by the astronauts. But invariably come back to "we can't prove" and "something weird".

'The McMinnville Sightings'
This is a revamping of a 1950s case in McMinnville, Oregon. A farmer and his wife photographed a spaceship. Some unnamed men talk about what the photos show. A physicist with the Navy who has been investigating the sightings says, "this is a real case." He goes through the photos talking about how it must have been built. Robert Schaffer says the couple made it and put it over the phone wires to explain Mrs. Trent having seen UFOs and people not believing here. End with the same usual "People still don't know and believe in UFOs" garbage.

'The Cartet Sightings'
Some witnesses from one family describe a set of lights. The talk about how the news media covers it and find nothing. They talk a great deal about who and what. Robert Schaffer says that something was sent up in a balloon (a whole 30 seconds of skepticism). Very much a witnesses say what they want and don't believe the skeptic who gets to give one possible explanation.

'Minnesota Sightings a UFO Case?'

'What was behind the Soviet Obsession with UFOs?'
This a very brief discussion of how unknown soviet launches coul be behind some sightings.

All in all it was a trashy exploitation of people's gullibility. It had the token skeptics looking like they were attacking the credibility of witnesses instead of presenting information about witness testimony. The specialists are not credible in their arguements and too much emphasis is put on distance judging in the sky and often at night. UFOs automatically mean aliens in this documentary. It was garbage and MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves for presenting this on their Dateline show.

Pick and Choose

I hate being a female, southern, white college student in this political atmosphere. No matter whom I argue for or against I get flack. If I like Obama it is because I am young and like the change movement. If I argue against Obama I am racist. If I like Hillary, it’s because I am female (and for some because I want to get abortions). If I argue against her it is because I am taken in by the flash and flare of the newer Obama campaign. I am almost ready to scream with all of these ridiculous arguments. At this point, I don’t like either of them.

Obama is too new for my liking and seems a little wet behind the ears to be made president. I don’t even want him to be a majority leader! I have heard his arguments and they sound nice but, like most politicians, he seems to side step some tougher questions and issues and gives very inspirational speeches that when taken apart seem to only say, “Gee. We should make things better. And aren’t those guys up there all stuck in their ways?” The problem I have with his youthfulness in the national political scene is that we don’t know how well he will follow through with some of his campaign promises. I worry that if we do elect him, thinking we will get something “new,” we will all be very disappointed. I think I am the only person who doesn’t see him as anything “new.” He still has lobbyists and everything everyone else has. The only difference is that it takes a great deal for him to attack someone, but that’s okay because he has people to do that for him.

Clinton is set in her ways and okay off politically. I, however, don’t see her time in the White House as training to be president. After going through her senate votes (as well as Obama’s) I agree on her with most things and her service on the Armed Services Committee is very great at this time in our nation’s history. The problem I have is some of her choice in staff and attacks. Granted, she wasn’t expecting to have to fight, but some of the shots she has taken are far below the belt (way *hee-hee*). The tone did become rather bothersome for me because it took away from real issues that I wanted to hear discussed. With the reconcilliary tone she has come to take now, I find it better, but wish she’d used it before this point. Now we get to hear more about issues and John McCain is getting attacked for the ridiculous things he says. (American troops are being welcomed home... well... those we still don’t have there.)

With the turn in the campaigns to the general election, hits on John McCain are growing and people do not like some of the attacks he is leveling against Barak Obama. If the head of the KKK said he wanted McCain to be president people would not say, “John McCain is prejudice and against the rights and solving problems in Sudan.” It doesn’t work either way and he needs to stop saying these things. He sounds like Bush when he swift-boated McCain in 2000. Now he is backing the president and ensuring the cry of duplication of the Bush presidency in his own workings. He is no maverick, he is not a straight talker, and he is a charlatan pulling the wool over the eyes of people looking for security in the future. He is the boy-who-cries-wolf of politicians right now saying that “bearings” evokes age and Obama supports terrorists. If that is so than so does McCain, he even sought the endorsement of a man who said we deserved 9-11. He has lost his “bearings,” as has any person who thinks that people who make more than $200k are the middle class to be helped in the coming presidency. Senator McCain is constantly asking for Olbermann’s one-line, which his campaign has complained about, “Old man yells at cloud!”

A-please-ment

This is important so I thought I would say something today instead of posting what I was planning on writing.

If I hear one more republican water carrier say the word appeasement without defining exactly what the appeasers did I am going to freak; especially if they want to use it as an attack.



This, if it works, is a video of Chris Matthews of Hardball on MSNBC catching one of his guests out when he tries to connect Obama to anti-Israeli feelings and Neville Chamberlain but does not even know what Chamberlain did and takes 5 minutes and 16 seconds to admit it. White House people, but not the press secretary, said this was about Obama. This is getting ridiculous. I wish I had entered into a pool for how long McCain could uphold his nice, attack-free campaign. I had it pegged for the middle of this week and it happened on Thursday that he compared Obama to Chamberlain. The problem they all seem to have is the same one that has been plaguing them for this entire presidency. They do not know history. They didn’t remember the occupation of the Philippines and compare it to Iraq or think of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The adage is true, history does repeat itself.

An even bigger problem is that they do not know the difference between diplomacy an d appeasement. Appeasement is when something is given away in exchange for a guarantee of a certain action while diplomacy requires no give and take. If they are telling the truth that this is not about Obama, then it must be them. They are calling to negotiate with Iran and are actively negotiating with North Korea. That Condoleezza Rice, she is so much like those conservatives and republicans who sought to appease the Nazis...oh wait.

Belief and Debate

A quick dedication to "Eric." If you read this and know it's you no worries mate this is just why I get angry when you try and debate me.

Belief is defined by dictionary.com (based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary) as:

1. An opinion or conviction
2. Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof
3. Confidence; faith; trust
4. A religious tenet or tenets.

I don’t understand the point of belief. It is a useful word especially when used as in case one or two as in, “I believe his story over yours.” The third definition and the forth definition are the ones that give me trouble. I don’t understand the equivalence between belief and faith the way many religious people use the words.

When speaking to people at my school I sometimes hear that something is the way it is because they have faith and believe it to be so. This means that in some of actual arguments they do not see their belief as an opinion or simple confidence in their idea. They present it as a fully supportable fact with an unbending strength which is where I grow weary. There is no argument one can present to disagree with them or debate anything. They will not give on a single aspect. The belief shot is where an argument dies. Case in point: me and a fried I will call “Eric” were discussing evolution. I was trying to understand how he could say that God created one of each species and it became all sorts of the species (like having grizzlies and pandas) without evolution having happened at all, guided or not. “Eric” stayed firm and kept restating his belief, which I did not mind, but as he grew more repetitive and I had different arguments for each point, “Eric” threw his trump card. He said, “This is my belief because I have faith.” There is no way of trumping that. “Eric” and I have had several discussions and almost all of them ended in this same statement.

As time has passed I have come to wonder, why did he use the word belief, especially in his discussions about God? The way he thinks of God is in a factual nature, the same way as I think about the wind. The problem I run into is that I would never say, “I believe in the wind,” or, “I have faith that the wind moved the leaves.” This is ludicrous to me. It is there I see the effects and can explain its origins and the nature behind it and that is how “Eric” feels about God. This is where I strain. Why say “believe” or “faith?” If it exists and can be proven in your mind, why should one use these straddling terms? There are people, who argue that the earth is the center of the universe and argue most vehemently their case for a heliocentric universe. Those of us who disagree with their ideals do not say that we believe the sun is at the center and the only thing rotating around the earth (besides man-made objects and debris) is the moon. We know it. It is fact. Why add the ambiguity of belief to the situation?

When religious believers like “Eric” debate they speak of belief in the same way I speak of theories. It is something known and just short of fact. This is where people who want to argue with the vehemently religious need to see the connection. If, in a debate about the beginning of the universe, a leading scientist says, “Well, the Big Bang Theory allows us to...” he will quickly be stuck in an argument about an absolute beginning and who started the Big Bang. Instead, if the scientist would just say, “I believe in the Big Bang,” they would be just as stumped as everyone else is when debating them. So this is my call for all scientists to use their beliefs in facts and fight fire with fire and for people who would argue a belief as fact think of what life would be like if we all went around saying things like, “I believe in this table and will therefore put my drink down on it.”

First: On the McCain Campaign

The Presidential election is an important time for our country. It is a time for redefinition of our political ideas, if we so wish. There are always group pushing to keep the status quo. In the last several weeks of this contest there has been a great deal of focus on Hillary and Barack, the only real competition left. The sad part of the story is that people are missing important details like that John McCain is getting less than 80% of the vote when he is the immanent nominee (I cannot rightly say that he is the only nominee, keep going Ron Paul). Tonight I am going to examine why this may be so, his potential problems running against Barak, and some of his recent comments and the controversy behind them.

John McCain the war hero has done so much for this country and I honor him immensely for the sacrifices he has made for us here in the United States. However when he enters the political field I do not see any reason for candy coating our comments. Senator McCain is no longer driving the “straight talk express.” He has, pardon my language, kowtowed to the whims of a party which, by the polls, is not fully backing him. There are three central features which I see playing an important role in this up-and-coming election: the economy, the war, and the comparison to the current president. Introduction of social issues is a possibility, but I do not see it as large of a factor in this year’s race unless something is started by recent comments which I will address later. His lack of backing by those considered the base of the party lies in his history as a semi-moderate in the Senate and current conditions of his changing sides on ideas like global warming, illegal immigration, and torture. These flip-flops played a major role in the stopping of John Kerry in the 2004 election and raise questions among true die-hard conservatives about his convictions on ideas they see no debate in.

This leads to the strong possibility of him running against Barack Obama in the fall and the problems he will most likely have in the competition. He says he wants to run a clean campaign which is great but this relies heavily on 529 groups doing the dirty work for him. If they just debate the issues he faces major stoppages for flip-flopping and the conviction question, so attacks to take down Obama on character are important. The problem is what is he going to use? If he uses the Reverend Wright controversy, not only will his own “pastor problems” be brought up, but he may even get a huge yawn from those of us who are already tired of hearing about it. Whoever is going to attack Obama needs something scandalous enough to stick, so far the Reverend Wright controversy has stuck but everything else rolls off of Obama like water off of a duck and Obama has passed a vetting by the Clinton attack team without even a scratch that McCain has a chance of reopening. Besides the problem of what he can hit Obama with there is the question of where. John McCain is not the best debater while Obama’s oratory skills are amazing and inspiring even if he really isn’t saying anything that any other democrat hasn’t already said. There are many times when McCain looks rehearsed and uncomfortable talking to groups and that discomfort could be his downfall. There is one issue which McCain has more than earned the right to attack Obama on and that is experience. McCain simply has more of it. And though it is the “old Washington” experience, it has a value of its own that cannot be matched. John McCain’s label as a maverick is important here. Though he fell in line with the more conservative end of the party more recently, he has put forth some ideas that were considered to be risky for a republican senator. Here is where people reach a fork in the road, should they think about that and go with his experience or go with the new rhetoric he has been spouting.

Recent comments by McCain about the conservatism of judges are very chilling not for the fact that he wants more conservative judges but for the fact that he wants judges who would be at the whims of voters. Judging by popular demand undermines our justice system not to mention the system of checks and balances set forth by the rarely read US constitution. By the way, small plug, Scott Ritter, former chief U.N. weapons inspector for Iraq, recently gave a talk at my university and was awesome. The best and most important point in his lecture was not about lies or stopping the war, it was about knowing the constitution and what rights we as Americans are guaranteed. To the main point, if he appoints judges who bow to the whims of the people, that means the laws will bow which means that, in a largely skewed view if criminals get to be a majority, the crime could be stricken from the record. The problem with following the majority is 1) is it a majority or a passionate and vocal minority, 2) what if the majority changes, and 3) what if you are suddenly found in the minority. These are three points I wish any person to examine before starting anything as suggested by John McCain.

Thus ends my first blog. I don’t know what I am going to right about next. Probably oil prices unless something more delicious catches my eye. Please comment on what you like or don’t like. I tried to touch on high news items so that no one is left in the dark but if you would like more info, let me know and I will try and provide it. I apologize for all misspellings and grammar issues. If you want anything in particular researched or talked about comment about it and I will try and blog about that next though I would prefer further discussion on the same topic. DO NOT ARGUE BLINDLY!!! This is an observation based on the facts I know and I do not want a yeah-ha, nuh-uh argument. Thanks for reading.